How Long Do They Run?

[Pete Tuck]

Having been with Anthony on many of these "evaluation" runs we have learned alot. And quite a few dogs with the well known bloodlines have hit the road. I have been beagling longer than Anthony, but with that said, I have learned a lot from him as well. Getting back to the subject, the last two Saturdays the runs seem to be hard pounding for a few minutes, and then a long check, and then hard pounding again. The rabbits have been squating alot on us the past couple of hunts. I believe this also has alot to with I think they are rutting. So, I am firm believer in that the rabbit controls the run.

[Mo. Beagler 5000]

Its sooo funny to me that I hear people say they have rabbit chases last over an hour every single time and then when you go to a trial or out hunting with them the races never get near that long

we have all had two hour races before but I think we have all had 10 minute races too where the dogs lost it not just hit a hole

[bluemouse]

Well Mo beagler I can honestly say that most races we have here with two people hunting last a hour or more 80% of the time, but I laugh at the 10 minute races that claim a loose or hole, but who am I to judge what happens in other regions. If you want to see first hand come on down an see first hand these rabbits do not go to a hole they might swim a canal but no rabbits to a hole lol, you got an open invitation.

[Bunnyblaster]

bluemouse, I might have missed it in an earlier post but are those swampers that will run like that for you? Generally up here hare will run like that but for us cottontails are generally good for 30-45 minutes give or take a little..........and of course we get extremes on both ends once in a while too. Spring we can count on some biiiiig loooooong runs............lots of snow and we get just the opposite. Of course I would have to blame my dogs for some of them short races............but they get the credit for the long ones too.

[Mo. Beagler 5000]

Blue, I am just saying in my region races dont last that long on cotton tail unless its around this time of year where scenting just sticks.

I know people do have dogs that can do it but I never seem to see it...

[packmaster]

As of late, I have been getting some close to 45min runs,that I know is the same rabbit.Rabbits know how to play tricks around here.tThey get ran Daily.

[scott calkins]

i would have to say if ya know you have a good dog . then you know the rabbit defines how big his circle is and how much he zig zags . so he determines how fast your runs are if he stays up and runs fairly strait and has a big area with ample cover to run big circles you have long flat out runs . if he wants to run the same 10 acer patch of briares your race is slower more checks and gets tracked up and harder for dogs so it seems they loose it . and as all the different types of rabbit also is a factor on how long they run. ive run swampers. hare cottontails . i go to boonsville indiana to the arha world hunt and run the strip mines and them cotton tails run like our hare in mi. its great but why. we dont get runs on what we call brown rabbits like that very often here in mi. so i think most of us have good dogs . so where your runing what type of rabbit and type of cover dictates how long your race is. more then dogs do. jmo but i have run in a lot of states and different rabbits and these factors dictated our average length of race.

[gwyoung]

Knowing that this post was on here , I went hunting with the intention of timing the runs. I had 5 runs and timed all five. The first run was 2 minutes , right to the hole. the second run was 18 minutes and we killed a male. the third run was 33 minutes and we killed a male. the fourth run was 78 minutes and we killed a male. the fifth run was 3 minutes and it went to hole. I started the clock on each run and before I looked at the clock after the run I guessed how long the run was. I over-estimated a little on the length of the runs. I estimated the 18 minute run as 25 minutes. I estimated the 33 minute run as 45 minutes. and I estimated the 78 minute run as 90 minutes. my buddy estimated the 78 minute run as two hours. The 78 minute run was so long because the rabbit went about a third of a mile and started circling over there, after a little while we walked over there and the rabbit then went another couple hundred yards and hit the ridge line and went through the woods back to where the dogs had started him , dogs ran him good and constant ( my buddy asked me how much I was going to sell the fox hide for, he saw a fox track earlier and thought they were running him) I have had longer chases but my chases are generally much shorter, the cottontails habit of circling back gets him killed. It appears the chases seem longer to me than what they are, but the clock cleared it up. I would say overall that if you take the holers out of the equation my average good chase would be twenty to twenty five minutes with the occassional hour long chase. The length of the chase while hunting depends a lot on the cover,( it makes rabbits hard to see sometimes) and how many hunters you have to see them!

[wireman252]

gwyoung ,
Good story with great stats. I like your comparison of estimated time to real time.I think most of us would find we over estimate a bit as well. I find it interesting that the rabbits shot were all males. Do you suppose the holers were female ?
Also according to the math , you had 5 rabbits run :
#1- 2 min. (hole)
#2- 18 min. (gun)
#3- 33 min. (gun)
#4- 78 min. (gun)
#5 - 3 min. (hole)
now if you average these times : 2+18+33+78+3 =134 min./5 runs = average of 26.8 min. per run
however if you leave out the holed runs : 18+33+78 = 129 min./3 runs = average of 43 min per run
As you can see, according to the math, leaving out the "holers" greatly increases our average run times.
I just found this an interesting example. Thank for sharing your story.

[gwyoung]

Wireman252, My " research " in the past tells me that these holers are females. We don't get an hour run everytime out, we normally are in a position to kill the rabbit before this kind of time expires. But males normally don't hole very quickly in decent weather, and I think if they weren't killed and just allowed to run we would see more runs exceeding an hour. Now this is in the areas I normally hunt. Also, I think most females wont stay up more than 5 minutes. She may make a short circle in this amount of time but most will not stay up much longer than 5 minutes. A lot of them won't stay up more than a couple of minutes, the majority will go straight to hole.

[bucks better beagles]

GW: They may very well be females that went to hole but how could you positively say that? I am reminded of the ancients who would see frogs crawl out of the mud in the spring and would say that they had died in the winter and been reborn in the spring.

[gwyoung]

buck, I did a little research years ago on this. I have posted this on this site in the past, I think. You may not like the method I employed and I am not overly proud of it today either, But I carried and placed steel traps down in the throat of the holes when we ran one in. Here is some interesting things I noticed. first off if the rabbit Went straight to hole without being shot at it was a female pretty much every time. If the rabbit was shot at and went to hole right after being shot at I rarely ever caught that rabbit to determine it's sex. This told me that that rabbit never left that hole again, it was hit and died in the hole. We don't miss as often as we think we do. The rabbits that ran for any length of time and then went to hole were almost always males. You would be surprised at the amount of weasels I would catch , I also caught a lot of 'possums. I trapped a lot of rabbits this way but someone ate all of them.

buck, you said, you were reminded of the ancients who saw frogs crawl out of the mud in the spring and say that they died in the winter and were reborn. You should know by now not to believe everything your former classmates tell you.

[mdbeagler]

I usually check my phone when the chase starts and check again when they stop barking
to see how long the check is. Once I know the rabbit is lost or holed I know how long the
chase actually was. I have gotten in the habit of doing this from field trialing, and judging.
A dog that can't keep a track going very long, or work a check
the way it should be worked can't make it as a trial dog or a gun dog.
There are times when I actually record the chase, that really gives
a good idea of how long the chase is.
I always like to know how long my dogs can keep one going.
Dogs that cause a lot of loses or constantly lose rabbits
don't stay around here very long.

[rabbitsmoker]

Med-Fast line contrl more over 20 min races than less sometimes alot longer Come to find out if a rabbit is run 45-60 min he is a caught bunny to me a 45 min race seems like a long time when standing there just listn

[bucks better beagles]

GW: How many rabbits did you catch using your trial method? Did you ever catch a dog? These type of things intrigue me so pardon all the questions. In the last few days, We have had some real good runs in the snow and after dark up here and one of the rabbits looked huge. I would have to think that it was a female